Most of the deaths occurred in Manila, which already was soaked by heavy monsoon rains ahead of Typhoon Nesat’s arrival with wind gusts of up to 93 mph.

The Philippine disaster agency said 35 people were still unaccounted for in the floods, and that 108 had been rescued.

PHILADELPHIA

Parents who took kids allege foster-care abuse

A New York City couple took their eight children from a Queens foster-care agency and went on the run last week because some of the kids were being abused, their attorney said yesterday.

A day after the family was found safe in Harrisburg, Pa., attorney Norman Steiner alleged that one boy had been molested and that some of his siblings “suffered horrendous abuse” during two years in foster care.

The parents will be charged with kidnapping, custodial interference and child endangerment, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said yesterday.

LINCOLN, NEB.

Oil pipeline’s backers, foes give U.S. officials an earful

Dueling protesters tangled yesterday in Nebraska during a raucous hearing over a proposed Canadian oil pipeline that opponents say could harm U.S. drinking water — a claim that supporters say is unfounded and offered by fear-mongering environmental groups.

U.S. State Department officials received an earful from supporters and opponents of the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline that would cross part of Nebraska’s vast underground water supply as it moved tar-sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico.

Debris from a defunct 6-ton NASA science satellite that crashed to Earth on Saturday fell harmlessly in a remote area of the South Pacific Ocean, NASA said yesterday.

Experts estimated that as much as 1,100 pounds of debris survived the satellite’s fiery plunge through the atmosphere.

The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California determined that the satellite entered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean at 14.1?degrees south latitude and 170.2 west longitude, NASA said in a statement. That’s roughly in the vicinity of Samoa.

WASHINGTON

Threat of lightning delays inspection of monument

Engineers decided yesterday to wait a day to begin rappelling down the Washington Monument for a visual inspection, saying that lightning in the area had made the work too dangerous.

The monument was damaged last month by a magnitude 5.8 earthquake, and the site has been closed to visitors ever since.